ConnecticutBob.Com is a modest blog on the internet since 2006. Progressive ideas are encouraged, and all politically-minded and reasonable people are welcome. America is the greatest country in the world, but we'll invade you if you disagree.

Wednesday, March 02, 2016

The Day After

Good morning folks! It's the day after Super Tuesday, and time to look at the numbers.

As it stands right now, the delegate count for the Republican nomination is as follows:

Needed to win: 1,237

Trump 285
Cruz 161
Rubio 87
Kasich 25
Carson 8

Trump currently has slightly more delegates than all his challengers combined. The GOP establishment is making statements that indicate there is a "dump Trump" movement starting up, although at this point it's probably too late and any serious uprising may splinter the party beyond repair.

Ensuring a Democratic win in November.

Speaking of the Democratic side, Hillary has taken a substantial lead over Bernie, but mostly because of that stupid "super delegate" system that our party insists it continue to use. I can't stress how much I hate that entire thing, because it makes us look like we favor some people over others, and the exclusivity of super delegates goes against every democratic (small "D") principle I hold sacred.

I mean, why not just appoint 9 favored Democrats as a sort of Supreme Court of our party, and then have them decide who will lead us?

The system is fucked, and I will never agree with it.

That being said (yet again, and probably to an unnecessary degree), here are the numbers as of 8:30AM on the day after. Pledged super delegate numbers are in parentheses (and I correctly spelled that work without using spell checker!)

Needed to win: 2,382

Clinton 543 (457)
Sanders 349 (22)

As you can see, Hillary has a 1,000 to 371 lead, mostly due to the super delegates. This race would be MUCH closer were it not for that. We are possibly looking at a convention where a candidate conceivably may win MORE elected delegates than his opponent, only to LOSE the nomination because of that fucked up super delegate system!

This scenario will have drastic consequences to the future of our party, going well beyond an eight-year Clinton presidency. It will disillusion a huge number of voters for future primaries. I mean, why bother going to the polls if your vote can be negated by the actions of a handful of party insiders? This sends the worst message to millennials and first-time voters.

Sanders will do a lot better in the West and North than he did in the South. The Clintons have a tremendous amount of goodwill leftover from the South, and Hillary definitely capitalized upon it. So the scenario I outlined above has a serious chance of being a reality.